So, where did all the men go? That's the burning question rightnow for network-television executives.
In a season where overall viewership is down, themost-disturbing loss has been males ages 10 to 34. One oftelevision's most-important demographics is missing, and the milkcarton ads can't be far behind.
Nielsen numbers show a 10-percent drop in that sought-after malegroup compared to 2002.
Executives are worried for a simple reason: fewer men result ina large loss of advertising revenue. Male viewers are more valuedbecause advertisers target them, and they are harder to reach sincemore women than men watch television.
The canceled shows provide the evidence. NBC recently unhooked"Coupling" from its vanguard Thursday night lineup. Fox covered up"Skin," and "Miss Match," "Karen Sisco" and "The Next JoeMillionaire" are all on life support.
In the late-night arena, new daddy David Letterman has falleneven further behind Jay Leno primarily because the younger audienceis fleeing his show. Apparently one can only take so much "Will ItFloat?"
Leno, however, has jaywalked to a two million-viewer edge overBall State's favorite son.
The network executives are perplexed and can't figure out whythey've lost viewers. The gut reaction has been to blame Nielsen,the Internet and cable TV.
Nielsen didn't enjoy the blame, but the company is also puzzledat the losses.
NBC's Jeff Zucker, however, isn't so confused.
"Some of our programs just sucked," he said.
Zucker took personal responsibility for "Coupling."
"If we'd listened to the research, 'Coupling' would not havebeen on the air."
Zucker gets a gold star for honesty, and his comments reveal twoof the main reasons viewers, males in particular, are leaving: theshows are simply terrible and the networks don't have a clearunderstanding of their audience.
Advertising executive John Rash was recently quoted in the NewYork Times, saying the World Series provided, "the best drama thisseason ... The programs simply have to get better."
Rash's comments are bolstered by cable ratings, which have heldsteady.
A quick look at the top primetime shows reveals that the theyare story-driven, substantive shows (well, all but "Friends").
Also, Reuters recently posted a story saying that, "It takesmore than sex to sell a show in primetime."
The ratings bear this out; it appears we fellas are moresophisticated than perceived.
Network executives have missed this. Like network news,primetime programming is now seeing viewer losses since theyhaven't evolved to meet demographics. The only conclusionapplicable is that the networks have lost touch with theviewers.
This was painfully obvious this past week when CBS pulled theirplanned Ronald Reagan miniseries. A sizable part of the viewingpublic let it be known they didn't want a beloved presidentskewered, and CBS ate crow.
Another factor has been defection to cable programming. Thetelevision landscape has expanded to the point that if you have aninterest, there's a channel for it. Consider this: The WeddingChannel just hit Direct TV.
Networks are facing the reality that they need creative,substantive shows to draw viewers back. It's time for them to getback to basics.
As researcher Steve Sternberg put it, "It's the programming,stupid."
Write to Jeff at mannedarena@yahoo.com
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